European Qur’an translations, 1500-1700

10.1163/9789004281110_004

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Chapter Summary

Three different complete Latin Qur'an translations would appear during the early modern period that presented the text along with elaborate, and remarkably learned, commentary, two of them offering their readers the Arabic and Latin versions side by side. Despite the continual growth of the European vernaculars as scholarly languages throughout this period, Latin remained a central learned language well into the 18th century, so it is not surprising that the Qur'an continued to circulate in, and be translated into, Latin right across these two centuries. Three complete, and completely new, Latin translations of the Qur'an also appeared in this period. In the mid-17th century the Observant Franciscan, Dominicus Germanus of Silesia (d. 1670), produced a complete Latin translation of the Qur'an which, though lacking an edition of the Arabic text, did offer the reader a learned commentary, much as Egidio da Viterbo's Latin Qur'an had.